


Beauty of A Moment

by SoulfireInc



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Brace yourselves, Emotional Whump, Gen, I was given permission for this YOU CAN'T GET MAD AT ME, I'm not sorry, Whump, but no spoilers, but sorry, i was encouraged, there MAY be an event
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24808153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoulfireInc/pseuds/SoulfireInc
Summary: Malcolm and Gil catch up with a suspect. It goes very, very badly, very, very quickly.
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright
Comments: 32
Kudos: 27





	Beauty of A Moment

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the Discord beans cos they TOLD ME TO WRITE IT BLAME THEM
> 
> (see end notes for tw)

Malcolm kept close to Gil’s side, his jacket whispering comfortingly against his sleeve. The apartments were quiet. No muted thuds of warring siblings, no music playing, no overworked parents losing their tempers. Just silence, cloaked and heavy.

They reached the end of the corridor and took to the stairs, Gil’s coat flashing around the corners a heartbeat before Malcolm. Their shoes kept a regular rhythm, dull squeaks testing the strength of the quiet, probing it for any hint of their quarry.

The fourth floor was a carbon copy of the third, identical doors lining each wall, that same unnatural silence connecting them.

“This doesn’t feel right,” Gil muttered, adjusting his grip on his gun.

Malcolm nodded. “He might be at the warehouse. JT and Dani will call once they know.”

Gil held up a hand and Malcom stopped, following his gaze to a shadow shifting under one of the doors. Gil glanced to the number and swallowed.

“He’s not at the warehouse.”

Malcolm meant to put his shoulder to the door, announce their presence and ready himself to break the thing down.

He never got the chance.

The door wrenched itself open, natural light blinding against the dim bulbs of the corridor. Malcolm squinted, turning his head away.

He would never forgive himself for that.

Evans was ready for them. And he didn’t hesitate. Malcolm heard the tiny _click_ that proceeded the cracking boom of gunfire, felt Gil’s hand shove him aside, bruising him. He stumbled, still blinking against the brightness, and heard a low grunt of pain that sent his stomach somersaulting.

Malcolm found his feet and steadied himself. Evans stood in the doorway, his arm around Gil’s throat, holding him up as blood coursed down his shoulder. Malcolm stilled, eyes flicking from the wound to Gil’s wary gaze to the gun lying useless on the floor to Evan’s unhinged grin.

“You don’t get second chances,” he hissed, grin widening sickeningly. “You know that, don’t you Cop?”

Malcolm licked his lips, waiting for the whirlwind in his mind to still into a strategy. He was working on an incomplete profile, but Evans was feeling trapped, maybe even remorseful. He was scared. Fear made him volatile, but it also meant Malcolm could get through to him. Fear he understood. Fear he could use.

“They don’t seem to, no,” he said evenly, relaxing his posture but keeping his hands upheld and nonthreatening. “People forget one mistake is all that separates them from the people they look down on. One moment.”

Evans chuckled and the sound was needles of ice stabbing along Malcolm’s spine. Gil grunted, one hand twitching to the arm almost choking him. Malcolm threw him a tiny nod, a shadowed smile. Gil’s answering nod was more of an expression, but Malcolm knew it well.

_I trust you, kid. I’ll follow you._

“You’re not gonna listen to me,” Evans said, desperation pulling on the syllables, distracting from their sincerity. “You’re gonna put me in a box and it won’t matter why I did it. _The why matters!”_

“I know it does,” Malcolm said quickly. “Believe me. I know.”

Evans shook his head, shifting his weight and bringing the rifle back into view. Malcolm tensed.

“No. No you don’t. Your job is more important to you than the truth. You don’t know how one moment – _one moment_ – can change everything. Can _ruin_ everything. Make you a different person. Make you _worse._ ”

Malcolm risked a tiny step forward, eyes flicking back to Gil’s. Fear warred there with courage, but trust shone through in that steady light that had gotten Malcolm through so many moments that might have broken him. That light was why he was here. Able to do some good. Help people.

That light was why he was alive.

Malcolm smiled, the fear slipping down his spine and leaving a calm confidence in his wake. He had this. He knew what to do. All he needed was thirty seconds, and Gil would be safe and Evans would be in cuffs.

Thirty seconds.

A handful of moments.

Evans only gave him one. The worst one.

“I’ll make you understand,” he muttered, dropping the gun and reaching for Gil’s head. Gil didn’t even have time to look afraid before Evans snapped his neck. His eyes were on Malcolm’s until they were wrenched to the side, that warm light of trust going with them, extinguishing. Evans let go, and Gil slumped to the ground without grace, without ceremony. Without life.

Gil’s body stilled. Eyes staring blindly up at his surrogate son. The darkness colder, infinite. Permanent.

The trust had been replaced by a sadness that stretched over his entire face, the fine lines of his age etched with disappointment.

Malcolm fell. Down stories and stories of endless nothing, growing colder with each inch, the image of Gil, dead consuming all colour, all memory, and even as his mind plummeted, even as his legs shook to keep him physically upright, Malcolm could feel one small part of his mind working, the part that had watched his father be walked out the door in handcuffs, the part that knew this was the last time, the last moment, the last chance, the last moment. It gathered up every detail he could fathom of his father’s face. Every wrinkle. Every eyelash. Every fleck of grey in the goatee. The exact colour of his skin.

It was a single moment. Just one. But it was branded onto Malcolm’s soul, into the flesh of his heart. He would feel its burn with every beat. See it with every blink.

Gil was beautiful. And Gil was dead.

The thought stopped the endless falling and Malcolm staggered, finally drawing a breath so desperate it burned. Evans still stood on the threshold. And he was still grinning.

Malcolm was not a profiler then. He was not a consultant of the NYPD. He was not educated, not rich, not burdened by tethers of morality.

He was rage. And he was moving before his scream began.

His shoulder barrelled into Evans’s gut and his weight was nothing to the fire, to the adrenaline and fury and howling, freezing, emptiness that had been the place where Malcolm was loved as a son. He didn’t stop when his foot slipped on the rug. Didn’t hesitate when Evans’s arm hit the couch and thwacked into Malcolm’s head.

He stopped when he heard glass shattering and the weight abruptly fell away. He stopped when his scream was drowned by another that ended far too abruptly, with a gurgle he could hear four stories above.

Evans lay in a halo of red. Legs broken. Arms bent unnaturally. The burn of this brand was cooler, gentler. Less frantic. More painful.

Martin Whitly’s voice whispered through his mind, the worlds pulled taught by pride.

_My boy._

Malcolm shook his head. Backed away. Blinked hard against the two brands.

He made it to the doorway before he realised that odd, rasping sound was his breath. His knees ached. Shaking hands reached for Gil. Dead weight dragged him down. Familiar aftershave surrounded him in a parody of safety. Blank eyes stared through him, ignoring him as they never would if the man he loved was in there.

He cradled Gil’s head against under his chin and rocked him. The silence crept back between the great gasps that kept him alive. It settled over him, pressing against him, numbing him from the weight he knew was coming to crush him to dust. Tears burned his eyes. Some fell by Gil’s, tracking down his cheekbone and Malcolm was saying it over and over because once would never be enough, a thousand would never be enough.

_I’m sorry, Dad._

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Major Character Death


End file.
